Lebanon Valley coin collectors deal with change

Commemorative wooden nickels will be handed out by the Lebanon Valley Coin Club at this weekend's coin show at the Lebanon Valley Expo Center. (Jeremy Long / Lebanon Daily News)

The signs are ubiquitous, from strip malls to street corners, multiplying from Harrisburg to Reading, popping up on poles and shining in storefronts.

"We Buy Gold and Silver."

But none of them belongs to the Lebanon Valley Coin Club.

The 73rd annual Lebanon Valley Coin Show will run 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Lebanon Valley Expo Center. Organized by local numismatists - coin collectors - the buy-and-sell festival offers free admission to the public, a full security detail and 24 East Coast vendor tables.

"Some of the collecting is not for the financially faint of heart," said a longtime member, who asked to remain anonymous because of the value of his collection. "But it doesn't matter if you're a novice or experienced - there will be a wide variety. It's going to be more coins, but there's some metal and some paper."

The club designed wooden nickels inked with an image of the old Lebanon County Courthouse in celebration of the county's 200th anniversary. The bicentennial pieces, stamped Feb. 16, 1813, will be handed out free at the door while supplies last.

"When I first got involved in 1972, there was a show every weekend," the anonymous club member said. "There's not quite as many nowadays. It's all coin clubs in general - the people who were collectors got old and died off. Those original people were diehards. There are still a few left, but not many."

Established in 1958, the local club has held numismatic events at various locations, including the Quality Inn (now Days Inn), Eagles Auditorium, Lebanon Plaza and onetime Masonic building on Eighth Street.

Advertisement

"We never missed a year," the club member boasted. "I remember we were in the Expo Center once (in the early 1970s) out in the new section. It was before air conditioning, and there were flies galore."

The group used to strike its own coins from the mid-1960s to mid-'80s, releasing brass, silver and 14 karat gold rounds highlighting local landmarks like Michter's Distillery, Lebanon Valley College, Union Canal Tunnel, Cornwall Iron Furnace and Weimer Machine Works.

They stopped pressing in 1984, due in large part to dwindling membership.

"The old guard is down," he said. "And the newer guys are not coming onto the scene to pick up the banner. For every 10 older guys, there's one younger guy."

The once-popular hobby has taken a hit over the years. The club swelled to 400-plus members in the late 1970s and now lists 47 coin, jewelry, paper and stamp enthusiasts.

"And most of the newer guys are only interested in bullion - they're not interested in coin shows," he said.

Gold closed at $1,369 earlier this week, while silver weighed in at $23 a troy ounce. That same silver weight flirted with $50 twice since 1980, once as recently as May 2011.

Volatility in the precious-metals markets - think violent mood swings leading to roller-coaster prices - has been one of the biggest deterrents to attracting members in the past few years, the club member said.

"Silver on the paper market has been oversold," he said. "That means if everybody who has a certificate wanted the metal, they wouldn't be able to send it. They couldn't do it."

The ETFs allow "Wall Street" traders another way to leverage a market exponentially, profiting up or down, without handling the relics initially referred to in the Bible's Book of Genesis.

"It's all paper," the member said. "If everyone would want to take possession of the hard stuff, they couldn't satisfy the demand."

This weekend's gala comes long after the Coinage Act of 1965, which eliminated silver from circulating dimes and quarters. It also falls on the 42nd anniversary of the "Nixon Shock," an August 1971 Sunday night television speech by President Richard Nixon effectively ending the link between gold and the world's reserve currency: the American dollar.

"Times are tough, so when people have things to sell or steal, they will," he said. "The economy is not peaches and cream as (you might) believe."

The Dow Jones index reached an all-time high on Aug. 2, closing at 15,658.36. The U.S. Mint, meanwhile, temporarily suspended sales on Silver Eagles earlier this year to keep up with investor demand.

"If you want to buy anything, now's the time," according to the local club member. "Yeah, it might tail off again. But when you buy, you put it away and forget about it. That's that. Just keep it. It's a feel-good thing. You never know. ... The coins keep me sane."

The Lebanon Valley Coin Club meets six times a year, on the fourth Monday of every other month. The next gathering, free and open to all ages, will be 6 p.m. Sept. 23 at Heisey's Diner, North Lebanon Township.